Ann Williams goes to great lengths to end polio

Friday

Jan 30, 2009 at 2:00 AM

Beautiful Gate Handicapped Center, on Faith Avenue, in Jos, Nigeria, has a lot of work to do. It supplies wheelchairs to polio survivors. And Nigeria is one of the last four countries in the world where polio exists (the other three are Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan).

Ellen Chahey

Osterville Rotarian travels to Nigeria to help

GRETCHEN BREN PHOTO OSTERVILLE IN NIGERIA – Ann Williams presents an Osterville Rotary flag to a fellow Rotarian in the small African nation. Beautiful Gate Handicapped Center, on Faith Avenue, in Jos, Nigeria, has a lot of work to do. It supplies wheelchairs to polio survivors. And Nigeria is one of the last four countries in the world where polio exists (the other three are Afghanistan, India, and Pakistan). But thanks to a Rotary Club International initiative – joined last Thanksgiving week by Osterville Rotarian Ann Williams – 7,000 Nigerian babies and children have been inoculated against the crippling disease. The youngsters also received measles vaccines and vitamins. Williams, who has a master’s degree in biology, was director of community affairs at Cape Cod Hospital from 1977 to 1994. She got involved locally in Rotary, originally an all-male organization, because her late husband Joe was a charter member of the Osterville chapter, and its fifth president. She added the international level – Rotary Clubs exist in 200 countries – in 1995 when Rotary celebrated the 50th anniversary of the United Nations. Rotarians, said Williams, helped to write the U.N. charter. So, for a Rotarian research biologist, it was a perfect fit when in the 1980s Rotary International chose the eradication of polio, at that time in the Philippines, as its highest priority. Williams remembers the ravages of polio in this country and the effectiveness of immunization. “And I had the time and the energy” to make the trip to Nigeria, she said. The Rotary anti-polio campaign, said Williams, “has saved millions and millions and millions of children.” And “we’ve got a good shot” at making their goal of eradicating polio “from the face of the earth,” she added. According to Rotary publicity, when their campaign began in the 1980s, “125 countries had polio. Today, there are just four.” All kinds of channels are being used in Nigeria to promote immunization. The late Edem Effiong, who is identified as “the first Nigerian Rotary Peace Scholar,” created a school children’s notebook with an anti-polio message. Above a multiplication table, the pink notebook cover carries a boxed notice to Nigeria’s children: “POLIO – The enemy we can defeat. If we do not stop polio in Nigeria, it will continue to spread. People think if we walk away from polio now, we will have just a couple hundred cases a year, rather we will have a few hundred thousand cases more. The time is now, lets have a polio free Nation. That little drop makes all the difference.” Rotary publicity describes polio as “an intestinal virus that enters the environment through feces. It’s spread through person to person contact, especially in situations of poor hygiene, and enters the body through the mouth.” The Rotary article notes that the virus can survive outside the body for two months and that polio has “no cure.” So immunization, that is to say prevention, is the only way to eradicate the disease. The Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation has given a total of $350 million to the Rotary Foundation to support Rotary’s anti-polio campaign. According to a Rotary press release, Bill Gates said, “The extraordinary dedication of Rotary members has played a critical role in bringing polio to the brink of eradication. Eradicating polio will be one of the most significant public health accomplishments in history, and we are committed to helping reach that goal.” As for the measles vaccine, Williams has a personal as well as professional motivation. A childhood friend got the disease, which then developed into encephalitis. “She died as a teenager,” Williams remembered. “But the few years she lived, she was mentally incompetent. And she had been a very bright girl.” Williams wants to talk more about Rotary than about herself, but she does joke about her educational background: Mt. Alvernia Academy in Chestnut Hill, Newton; Chestnut Hill College in Philadelphia; and Boston College in Chestnut Hill, Boston. “When people ask me where I went to school,” she said, “I just say, ‘Chestnut Hill.’’ She would welcome invitations from groups to give a presentation about her trip. She also says that Barnstable’s three Rotary clubs would receive contributions; the phone book lists Rotary Club information at 508-790-7888. Anyone can contribute to Rotary’s anti-polio fund, Willaims said. Make a check payable to the Rotary Club of your choice, and memo “Polio Eradication.” Williams, the only Cape Codder out of 13 Rotarians who traveled to Nigeria on the mission in November, became emotional when asked for her personal reaction to the trip. “To squeeze a little vial of polio vaccine,” knowing it would protect a child, “was a dream come true.”